Valentine’s Day calls to mind the young, the sexy, the hormonally driven. On passion’s official day, the quiet, the methodical and the somewhat uptight are overlooked. But Cupid’s arrow hits them, too. Take, for example, my British in-laws. Margaret and Norman embodied reserve, decorum and moderation, with days spent in their North Yorkshire garden, turning […]
In 2019, I hope to “become” not to “overcome.” To me, becoming is about awareness and inner change, while overcoming feels like a grinding discipline of must and should. Yet there is so much to overcome: the polemics of news, bad habits, ongoing hurts. But recently I fasted from TV for a week, and a […]
(Photo: Granddaughter Bella, daughter Star, Suzette, and granddaughter Lulu) Christmas is enchanting. Maybe it’s the twinkling lights on frosty streets, the aroma of holiday baking or merry music everywhere. For me, it’s a magical return to childhood. When I was little, the Infant Jesus began my family’s exciting lead-up to his birthday. My mother would […]
{Photo: My friend, Adriana Heim, deserves equal recognition on Mother’s Day.} Mother’s Day celebrates the maternal, and that is not limited to childbirth. A lavish spring bouquet to all the women who cared for us with no less than a mother’s love! It’s taken me a lifetime, at age 63, to fathom the preciousness of […]
Valentines Day is romance in a heart-shaped candy box. Our annual day of love is a huge leap from its historical origins: drunken Roman fertility rites and Christian martyrdom. How did lace-edged Valentine cards evolve from orgies and a beheading or two? One might ask how did St. Patrick come to be synonymous with green […]